The Medieval Scholastics adopted a cosmology that fused the ideas of the Greek philosophers Aristotle and Ptolemy. The Greeks and Stoics adopted a model of celestial spheres after the discovery of the spherical Earth in the 4th to 3rd centuries BC. Calvin's " doctrine of accommodation" allowed Protestants to accept the findings of science without rejecting the authority of scripture. "As it became a theologian, had to respect us rather than the stars," Calvin wrote. "He who would learn astronomy and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere," wrote Calvin. In 1554, John Calvin proposed that "firmament" be interpreted as clouds. The Copernican Revolution of the 16th century led to reconsideration of these matters. Thomas Aquinas, the firmament had a "solid nature" and stood above a "region of fire, wherein all vapor must be consumed." Saint Basil argued for a fluid firmament. "We may understand this name as given to indicate not it is motionless but that it is solid." he wrote. So slight is this elevation that birds may rise to it and fly along its expanse.Īugustine wrote that too much learning had been expended on the nature of the firmament. To this vault are fastened the lights, the stars. Over this is arched the solid vault of heaven. The Hebrews regarded the earth as a plain or a hill figured like a hemisphere, swimming on water.
Like most ancient peoples, the Hebrews believed the sky was a solid dome with the Sun, Moon and stars embedded in it. It is derived from the root raqa‘ ( רקע), meaning "to beat or spread out", e.g., the process of making a dish by hammering thin a lump of metal. The word "firmament" is used to translate raqia, or raqiya‘ ( רקיע), a word used in Biblical Hebrew. The word is a Latinization of the Greek stereōma, which appears in the Septuagint (c. This in turn is derived from the Latin root firmus, a cognate with "firm". The word is anglicised from Latin firmamentum, used in the Vulgate ( 4th century). It later appeared in the King James Bible. The word "firmament" is first recorded in a Middle English narrative based on scripture dated 1250. So the evening and the morning were the second day. Then God said, “Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.” Thus God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament and it was so. The firmament is described in Genesis 1:6–8 in the Genesis creation narrative:
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